Good riddance, January cold. But what about February?

Feb. 1, 2014
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A parent and student leave a school in whiteout conditions on Wednesday, Jan. 22, 2014, in North Mankato, Minn., after high winds and frigid temperatures prompted officials to dismiss classes early. / John Cross, AP

by Doyle Rice, USA TODAY

by Doyle Rice, USA TODAY

Goodbye January, and good riddance to the polar vortex, Alberta Clippers, nor'easters and crippling ice storms.

An old-fashioned wintry month of record cold and heavy snow - the likes of which much of the country hasn't seen in decades - is finally over, and the only question now is whether this period of weather misery will extend into February.

Long-range forecasts from AccuWeather show that the cold will likely linger in the northern states and much of the South throughout February and into March, while spring will get an earlier start in the Southwest and Florida. We'll learn Sunday morning whether the nation's most famous groundhog, Punxsutawney Phil, agrees.

The toll in January was staggering: Dozens of people from Missouri to Connecticut died in the wild weather, the Associated Press reported. In addition, tens of thousands of flights were canceled, and more than 90% of the nation's 116 million homes will likely have higher heating bills because of the cold blasts.

"We've been so spoiled over the past few winters. This one was a rude awakening," said AccuWeather meteorologist Tom Kines.

The apropos capper to the wild month happened earlier this week, when 2.6 inches of snow in Atlanta created a post-apocalyptic travel nightmare in the region's largest city.

The "polar vortex" was once again the culprit, as a meandering jet stream allowed parts of the vortex to slosh down and funnel some of the unspeakably cold air from the Arctic to the central and eastern U.S.

"The most remarkable aspect of the weather of January 2014 was the extreme jet stream pattern," said meteorologist Jeff Masters of the Weather Underground. "The extremely wavy jet stream brought a deep trough of low pressure that anchored itself over the eastern U.S., resulting in the most intense cold air outbreak seen in 20 years."

Chicago had its coldest January since Mike Ditka was coach of the Bears in the mid-1980s, while some parts of winter-savvy Minnesota have been shivering through one of their three coldest winters on record.

While data for the entire nation won't be out until mid-February, it's clear that nearly every state east of the Rockies had a colder-than-average January.

And even though it got its own Twitter hashtag and the associated media frenzy, the polar vortex wasn't exactly breaking news: The vortex has likely "existed in some form for the past 4.5 billion years," according to senior scientist Jeff Kiehl of the National Center for Atmospheric Research in Boulder, Colo.

Meanwhile, fueled by the cold air, a series of "Alberta Clippers" - snowstorms so-named because of their province of origin in Canada - dumped piles of snow across the Midwest, shattering snow-removal budgets and racking up the snow days.

Both Detroit and Toledo, Ohio, are digging out from their snowiest single month on record, the weather service reported. Other cities - such as Cincinnati, Chicago and Indianapolis - have already seen more snow than they typically get for the entire season; those locations can pick up snow all the way into April.

Yet despite the wave of storms and the ferocious chill in the central and eastern U.S., the steady, silent drumbeat of the Western drought might end up being the biggest weather story of 2014.

"The almost complete lack of precipitation over California, Arizona, and Southern Nevada during what is normally the height of the winter rainy season was extraordinary," Masters said.

The cause, he said, was an intense ridge of high pressure that set up over the Western U.S., helping smash all-time January records for warmth over much of California and Alaska.

The lack of rain and snow in California does not bode well for the 38 million residents of the nation's most populous state. Despite the modest amount of rain and snow this week, the drought remains. San Francisco has just seen its driest year on record, as just under half-a-foot of rain fell in 2013, the least since the 1850s.

And while we await the groundhog's prediction on Sunday, the forecast for the first week of February is for a major winter storm for much of the middle and eastern part of country, Kines said.